


Regret

by supernaturalwhovian



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester - Freeform, Death, F/M, Jo Harvelle - Freeform, Love, Regrets, Sam Winchester - Freeform, dream - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2207763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernaturalwhovian/pseuds/supernaturalwhovian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester has some very specific regrets when it comes to Jo Harvelle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regret

“It's our last night on Earth, huh?” Dean leaned against the counter, popping the lid off of a glass beer bottle. “How do you think we should spend it?” He leaned in close, his breath brushing her skin.  
Jo raised her eyebrows at him, leaning in close enough that her heart pounded, sure their lips would brush. Then she grinned. “With a little self respect.”  
She turned to open the door of Bobby's rattly old fridge, pulling herself out a beer and taking a swig.  
Dean paused, looking down at his hands. Sometimes he saw them the way a stranger would see them: calloused and roughened from holding flashlights and pulling triggers, scarred from the times his hand slipped on a blade, the small scar from when he held a lighter too close while burning a body. It made him wonder what the Hell he was doing this job for, what he got out of it.  
Nothing. That's what he got. Nothing. He would never even have a family. He could never ask Jo to—  
He cleared his throat, looking up at the petite blonde, who was a lot tougher than she looked. He had learned that the hard way.  
“Jo?” he asked. Dean felt strained, like someone had stuffed wads of cotton down his throat. He couldn't swallow. He desperately wanted to pull her close and kiss her, hold her tight and never let her go, but he knew she would never go for that. She was too proud.  
“What is it?” Jo was looking at him with a tenderness that was rare for her.  
“Are you afraid of... how this job ends?” He could barely believe he was opening up this part of himself to her. He wanted to shove it down and kill it. He knew long ago that to have any affection for anyone was weakness. Weakness that the enemy would use against him. So he could never let them get too close.  
But God, it was hard when he was with her.  
“How it ends?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. She had abandoned her beer on the counter. He licked his lips, suddenly dry, as his eyes flickered down to her mouth. Pale pink lip gloss. It was all he could see.  
“How it ends. We're gonna die while we're young.” He was looking anywhere but her, studying the peeling wall paper. Bobby had let the house go since his wife died, not that Dean could blame him—even though Dean had never been in love. Well, before now. “We're gonna die young, Jo. We're never going to have a family. All this time saving people, and—and this is how the universe thanks us?”  
He almost thought he might cry.  
Dean Winchester doesn't cry, he chided himself.  
“Dean.” Her voice was soft as she reached out to him, gently. She was so beautiful. “Dean, you're drunk.”  
“No I'm not,” he said gruffly, even though he knew it was true, because he was already thinking he might really reach out, pull her close, and kiss her. Or maybe it was a combination of being a little bit tipsy and the impending apocalypse.  
“Besides, who would you have a family with? Can you think of a single long term relationship you've ever had?” Her eyebrow was quirked in that sassy way that made him weak in the knees. The bottom of his stomach dropped out.  
“No, but I know one I want.” Dean, himself, was surprised at how forthcoming he was. He was surprised he didn't want to hit it and run, the way he always did. And he was terrified. Terrified at the million ways this could end. Terrified at the hundred ways his heart could be ripped out. Terrified at the thousands of possibilities that Jo would be hurt because of him. But even so, despite how afraid he was, he grabbed her and kissed her, and he was surprised when she didn't complain. She didn't swat him away or tell him he was an ass. No, she did the thing Dean expected the least.  
She kissed him back.  
And then when she pulled away and he looked into those impossibly blue eyes, she did something he expected even less.  
“I love you,” she whispered.  
He choked as he replied. “I love you too, Jo. I love you with all my heart. I love you and that's why I wouldn't whisk you away with us from the roadhouse. I love you so much I'm so scared of what being involved with me will make happen to you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”  
But she was talking over him, even as he professed what might as well be undying love, for how gross and mushy it was to come from him.  
“Dean,” she was saying. Her voice was getting deeper and deeper now. Dean frowned in confusion. “Dean, Dean, Dean.”  
“Dean,” Sam said as Dean opened his eyes, looking up at the ceiling of the motel. His face was strangely wet. “You were crying in your sleep.”  
“No I wasn't.” He wiped the tears away roughly. Sam let it go, knowing better than to press.  
Dean knew he would have never swallowed his pride enough to tell Jo how he felt about her before she died. But with every fiber of his being, he regretted it.  
If he'd known that, in the end, she would die even if he didn't get involved, he would have just admitted it. There had been a possibility for some happiness until she'd inevitably be stolen away from him, and he hadn't taken it. And he couldn't say he was sorry for not making her happy.  
That was what hurt him the worst.


End file.
